Ali and Nino

Author: Kurban Said
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780701169596
Category : Azerbaijan
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Book Description
"Ali and Nino" is the epic novel of enduring romance in a time of war. It has been hailed as one of the most romantic epic novels of all time. Ali and Nino, two lovers from vastly different backgrounds, grow up together in carefree innocence in Baku on the Caspian Sea. Here, where Eastern and Occidental collide, they are inevitably drawn into the events of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Torn apart by the turmoil, Ali joins the defense of Azerbajan from the onslaught of the Red Army, and Nino flees to the safety of Paris with their child, not knowing whether they will ever see each other again. A sweeping tale, as romantic and gripping as "Gone with the Wind" or "Dr. Zhivago," it portrays, against a gloriously exotic backdrop, the enduring love between childhood friends divided by their separate cultures.

Approaches to Kurban Said's Ali and Nino

Author: Carl Niekerk
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1571139907
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Essays showcasing the novel Ali and Nino as particularly topical for today's readers both in and out of the classroom, and providing a number of diverse approaches to it.

The Orientalist

Author: Tom Reiss
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812972767
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 491

Book Description
A thrilling page-turner of epic proportions, Tom Reiss’s panoramic bestseller tells the true story of a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan and, as “Essad Bey,” became a celebrated author with the enduring novel Ali and Nino as well as an adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones with a fatal secret. Reiss pursued Lev’s story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surreal–and sometimes as heartbreaking–as his subject’s life.

Girl from the Golden Horn

Author: Kurban Said
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9780715634004
Category : German fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
From the mysterious author of the international bestseller, Ali and Nino, soon to be the subject of a major biography, comes a novel of thwarted love, exile, and desire, never before published in the UK. The story of Kurban Said and the international bestseller Ali and Nino is one of the most beguiling literary mysteries of recent years. Equally beguiling is the existence of another novel - an insinuating and strikingly beautiful story set against the backdrop of Weimar Berlin. Kurban Said once again takes up the subject of a cross-cultural love story between Muslims and Christians in a spellbinding story that stretches from Istanbul to Weimar Berlin to Jazz Age New York City. The Girl From the Golden Horn is an elegant story of suspense that enthralls from the first page to the last.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: MB Cooltura
ISBN: 9877448351
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 111

Book Description
An oriental prince begins an affair in London with a girl of dubious reputation, to whom he gives an emblematic ruby that disappears along with the young woman. Hercule Poirot is summoned to retrieve it. Posing as a guest at the Lacey family home, the detective will share a traditional Christmas to follow the thieves' trail until he finds the valuable jewel.

The Caucasus

Author: Thomas De Waal
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190683082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
This new edition of The Caucasus is a thorough update of an essential guide that has introduced thousands of readers to a complex region. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the break-away territories that have tried to split away from them constitute one of the most diverse and challenging regions on earth, impressing the visitor with their multi-layered history and ethnic complexity. Over the last few years, the South Caucasus region has captured international attention again because of disputes between the West and Russia, its unresolved conflicts, and its role as an energy transport corridor to Europe. The Caucasus gives the reader a historical overview and an authoritative guide to the three conflicts that have blighted the region. Thomas de Waal tells the story of the "Five-Day War" between Georgia and Russia and recent political upheavals in all three countries. He also finds time to tell the reader about Georgian wine, Baku jazz and how the coast of Abkhazia was known as "Soviet Florida." Short, stimulating and rich in detail, The Caucasus is the perfect guide to this fascinating and little-understood region.

Grit

Author: Angela Duckworth
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
ISBN: 9781534452732
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
“A useful guide for parents or teachers looking for confirmation that passion and persistence matter, and for inspiring models of how to cultivate these important qualities.” —The Washington Post In this young readers edition of the instant New York Times bestseller Grit, MacArthur Genius Award–winning professor Angela Duckworth offers insights into who succeeds in life and why the secret to achievement a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” The daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of “genius,” Angela Duckworth is now a celebrated researcher and professor. It was her early eye-opening stints in teaching and neuroscience that led to her hypothesis about what really drives success: not genius, but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance. In Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success Duckworth shows young people how they can achieve remarkable things not just by relying on natural talent but by practicing a unique form of focused persistence. She also teaches them how to be better at pursuing the small goals that will bring joy into their everyday life. Drawing on her powerful personal story, Duckworth describes how a youth spent smashing through every academic barrier resulted in the hypothesis that the real predictor of success may not be inborn “talent” but a special blend of resilience and single-mindedness. Through her descriptions of field research at venues as various as the National Spelling Bee (where students who score highest on the “Grit Scale” land in the final rounds) to work with Pete Carroll coach of the Seattle Seahawks, who was building the grittiest culture in the NFL, Duckworth shows how “grit” works in the real world. She also passes along insights gleaned from interviews with dozens of high achievers including the New York Times Crossword Editor, the Dean of Admissions at Harvard, and more.

The Orientalist

Author: Tom Reiss
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1407053825
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Book Description
The Orientalist unravels the mysterious life of a man born on the border between West and East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world. Tom Reiss first came across the man who called himself 'Kurban Said' when he went to the ex-USSR to research the oil business on the Caspian Sea, and discovered a novel instead. Written on the eve of the Second World War, Ali and Nino is a captivating love story set in the glamorous city of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. The novel's depiction of a lost cosmopolitan society is enthralling, but equally intriguing is the identity of the man who wrote it. Who was its supposed author? And why was he so forgotten that no one could agree on the simplest facts about him? For five years, Reiss tracked Lev Nussimbaum, alias Kurban Said, from a wealthy Jewish childhood in Baku, to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, and an exile in Berlin as bestselling author and self-proclaimed Muslim prince. The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth-century - of the origins of our ideas about race and religious self-definition, and of the roots of modern fanaticism.

Days in the Caucasus

Author: Banine
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 178227488X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
A scintillatingly witty memoir telling the story of a young woman's determined struggle for freedom We all know families that are poor but 'respectable'. Mine, in contrast, was extremely rich but not 'respectable' at all... This is the unforgettable memoir of an 'odd, rich, exotic' childhood, of growing up in Azerbaijan in the turbulent early twentieth century, caught between East and West, tradition and modernity. Banine remembers her luxurious home, with endless feasts of sweets and fruit; her beloved, flaxen-haired German governess; her imperious, swearing, strict Muslim grandmother; her bickering, poker-playing, chain-smoking relatives. She recalls how the Bolsheviks came, and they lost everything. How, amid revolution and bloodshed, she fell passionately in love, only to be forced into marriage with a man she loathed- until the chance of escape arrived. By turns gossipy and romantic, wry and moving, Days in the Caucasus is a coming-of-age story and a portrait of a vanished world. Banine shows us what it means to leave the past behind, and how it haunts us. Banine was born Umm El-Banu Assadullayeva in 1905, into a wealthy family in Baku, then part of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution and the subsequent fall of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Banine was forced to flee her home-country - first to Istanbul, and then to Paris. In Paris she formed a wide circle of literary acquaintances including Nicos Kazantzakis, André Malraux, Ivan Bunin and Teffi and eventually began writing herself. Days in the Caucasus is Banine's most famous work. It was published in 1945 to critical acclaim but has never been translated into English, until now.

Penguin Readers Level 3: The Great Gatsby (ELT Graded Reader)

Author: F Scott Fitzgerald
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241483328
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 62

Book Description
Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. The Great Gatsby, a Level 3 Reader, is A2 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing first conditional, past continuous and present perfect simple for general experience. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. Everybody wants to know Jay Gatsby. He is handsome and very rich. He owns a big house, and he has wonderful parties there. But after the music and dancing, does anybody really know who Jay Gatsby is? This is a story of love, money, and secrets. Visit the Penguin Readers website Register to access online resources including tests, worksheets and answer keys. Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock a digital book and audio edition (not available with the eBook).